Publications

Journal Publications

Kam, J.W.Y., Javed, J., Hart, C., Andrews-Hanna, J., Tomfohr-Madsen, L., Mills, C. (in press). Daily practice of brief mindfulness training reduces negative impact of COVID-19 news exposure on affective well-being. Psychological Research.

Alperin, B., Christoff, K., Mills, C., Karalunas, S. (2021). More than off task: Increased freely moving thought in ADHD. Consciousness and Cognition. 93, 103156.

Mills, C., Porter, A., Andrews-Hanna, J., Christoff, K., Colby, A., (2021). How task-unrelated and freely-moving thought relate to affect: Evidence for dissociable patterns in everyday life. Emotion.

Kam, J.W.Y., Irving, Z.C., Mills, C., Gopnik, A., Knight, R.T. (2021). Distinct electrophysiological signatures of task-unrelated and dynamic thoughts. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dong, H., Mills, C., Knight, R.T., Kam, J.W.Y. (2021). Detection of mind wandering using EEG: within and across individuals. PLOS One. 16(5): e025149

Mills, C., Zamani, A., White, R.A., Christoff, K. (2021). Out of the blue: Understanding abrupt and wayward transitions in thought through probability and predictive processing. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

D’Mello, S.K., Mills, C. (2021). Mind wandering during reading: A review of cognitive, behavioral, computational, and intervention research. Language and Linguistics Compass. 15(4), e12412

Mills, C., Gregg, J., Bixler, R., D’Mello, S.K. (2021). Eye-Mind Reader: An intelligent reading interface that promotes long-term comprehension by detecting and responding to mind wandering. Human Computer Interaction.

Forner, N., Mills, C., Ross, R. (2020). Tendency to ruminate and anxiety are associated with altered alpha and beta oscillatory power dynamics during memory for contextual details. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience.

Girn, M., Mills, C., Roseman, L., Carhart-Harris, R.L., Christoff, K. (2020). The dynamic framework of thought: creativity and psychedelics. NeuroImage.

Forrin, N., Mills, C., Seli, P., D’Mello, S.K., Risko, E.F., Smilek, D. (2020). TL;DR: Longer sections of text increase rates of unintentional mind-wandering. Journal of Experimental Education.

Girn, M., Mills, C., Christoff, K. (2019). Linking Brain Network Reconfiguration and Intelligence: Are we there yet? Trends in Neuroscience and Education.

Hutt, S., Krasich, K., Mills, C., Bosch, N., Brockmole, J., D’Mello, S.K. (2019). Automated Gaze-Based Mind Wandering Detection during Computerized Learning in Classrooms. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction.

Wammes, J.D., Ralph, B.C.W., Mills, C., Bosch, N., Duncan, T.L., Smilek, D. (2019). On disengagement during lectures: Media multitasking and mind wandering in the university classroom. Computers & Education. 132, 76-89.

Smith, G.K., Mills, C., Paxton, A., Christoff, K. (2019). Mind wandering rates fluctuate across the day: Evidence from an experience sampling study. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications. 3(1), 54.

Zedelius, C., Mills, C., Schooler, J. (2019). Beyond Subjective Judgments: Predicting Evaluations of Creative Writing from Computational Linguistic Features. Behavior Research Methods. 51(2), 879-894.

Mills, C. & Christoff, K. (2018). Finding Consistency in Boredom by Appreciating its Instability. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 22(9) 744-747.

*Fox, K.C.R., *Andrews-Hanna, J., Mills, C., Dixon, M.L., Marcovic, J., Thompson, E., Christoff, K. (2018). Affective neuroscience of self-generated thought. Annals of New York Academy of Sciences. 38(29) 6439-6441.

Calderon, M., Mills, C., D’Mello, S.K., Risko, E.F. (2018). Re-watching lectures as a study strategy and its effect on mind wandering. Experimental Psychology. 1-9.

Wilson, K., Martinez, M., Mills, C., D’Mello, S.K., Smilek, D., Risko, E.F. (2018). Instructor presence effect: Liking does not always lead to learning. Computers & Education, 122, 205-220.

Dixon, M.L., De La Vega, A., Mills, C., Andrews-Hanna, J., Spreng, R.N., Cole, M., Christoff, K. (2018). Heterogeneity within the frontoparietal control network and its relationship to the default and dorsal attention networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201715766.

Mills, C., Raffaelli, Q., Irving, Z.C., Stan, D., Christoff, K. (2018). Is an off-task mind a freely-moving mind? Examining the relationship between different dimensions of thought. Consciousness & Cognition, 58, 20-33.

Mills, C., Wu, J., D’Mello, S.K. (2017). Being sad is not always bad: The influence of affect on expository text comprehension. Discourse Processes,1-18.

Joksimović, S., Oleksandra, S., Kovanović, V., Dowell, N. M., Mills, C., Gašević, D., Dawson, S., Graesser, A. C., & Brooks, C. (2018). How do we model learning at scale? A systematic review of the literature. Review of Educational Research, 88(1), 43-86

Mills, C., Graesser, A.C., Risko, E.F., D’Mello, S.K. (2017). Cognitive Coupling during Reading. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 146(6), 872-883.

Dixon, M.L., Andrews-Hanna, J.R., Spreng, R.N., Irving, Z.C., Mills, C., Girn, M., Christoff, K., (2017). Interactions between the default network and dorsal attention network vary across default subsystems, time, and cognitive states. NeuroImage. 147(15), 632-649.

Raffaelli, Q., Mills, C., Christoff, K. (2017). The knowns and unknowns of boredom: A review of the literature. Experimental Brain Research.

Faber, M., Mills, C., Kopp, K. D’Mello, S.K. (2016). The effect of disfluency on mind wandering during text comprehension. Psychological Bulletin and Review, 1-6.

Kopp, K., Mills, C., & D’Mello, S.K. (2016). Mind wandering during film comprehension. Psychological Bulletin and Review. 23(3), 842-848.

Phillips, N., Mills, C., & D’Mello, S.K., Risko, E.F. (2016). On the influence of re-reading on mind wandering. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1-20.

Mills, C., & Kopp, K., D’Mello, S.K. (2015). The influence of consequence value and text difficulty on affect, attention, and learning while reading instructional texts. Learning and Instruction. 40, 9-20.

Kopp, K., D’Mello, S.K. & Mills, C. (2015). Influencing the occurrence of mind wandering while reading. Consciousness and Cognition. 34, 52-62.

Mills, C., & D’Mello, S.K. (2014). On the Validity of the Autobiographical Emotional Memory Task for Emotion Induction. PLOS One, 9(4): e95837.

D’Mello, S.K., Mills, C., (2014). Emotions during Emotional and Non-emotional Writing. Motivation and Emotion, 38(1), 140-156.

Lehman, B., D’Mello, S.K., Strain, A.C., Mills, C. Gross, M., Dobbins, A., Wallace, P., Millis, K., Graesser, A.C. (2013). Inducing and Tracking Confusion with Contradictions During Complex Learning. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 22(2), 85-105.

Book Chapters

Mills, C. & Christoff, K. (2018). Constructed Futures. In P. Tortell, M. Turin, & M. Young (Eds.) Memory. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.

Mills, C., Herrera-Bennett, A., Faber, M., Christoff, K. (in press). Why the mind wanders: How spontaneous thought’s default variability may support episodic efficiency and semantic optimization. In K.C.R. Fox & K. Christoff (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Spontaneous Thought: Mind-wandering, Creativity, Dreaming, and Clinical Conditions. New York: Oxford University Press.

Peer-Reviewed Published Conference Proceedings

Varao-Sousa, T., Mills, C., Kingstone, A. (in press). Where You Are, Not What You See: The Impact of Learning Environment on Mind Wandering and Material Retention. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference (LAK 2019). ACM: New York, NY. (Best Short Paper Award Winner)

Allen, L.K., Mills, C., McNamara, D.S. (in press). Are You Talking to Me? Multi-Dimensional Language Analysis of Explanations during Reading. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference (LAK 2019). ACM: New York, NY.

Bosch, N., Mills, C., Wammes, J. D., & Smilek, D. (2018). Quantifying classroom instructor dynamics with computer vision. In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED 2018). Berlin Heidelberg: Springer.

Krasich, K., Hutt, S., Mills, C., Spann, C., Brockmole, J. & D’Mello, S.K. (2018). "Mind" TS: Testing a brief mindfulness intervention with an intelligent tutoring system. In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED 2018). Berlin Heidelberg: Springer.

D’Mello, S.K, Mills, C., Bixler, R., Bosch, N. (2017). Zone out no more: Mitigating mind wandering during computerized reading. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2017). International Educational Data Mining Society. (Best Paper Award Nominee)

Hutt, S., Mills, C., Bosch, N., Krasich, K., Brockmole, J., D’Mello, S.K. (2017). Out of the Fr-“Eye”-ing Pan: Towards Gaze-Based Models of Attention during Learning with Technology in the Classroom. Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation, and Personalization (UMAP 2017). ACM: New York, NY. (James Chen Best Student Paper Award winner)

Girn, M., Mills, C., Laycock, E., Ellamil, M., Ward, L., Christoff, K. (2017). Neural Dynamics of Spontaneous Thought: An EEG Study. Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI 2017) (pp. XX- XX). Springer. (Best Paper Award winner)

Mills, C., Fridman, I., Soussou, W., Waghray, D., Onley, A., D’Mello, S.K. (2017). Put your thinking cap on: Detecting Cognitive Load using EEG during Learning. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge (LAK 2017). ACM: New York, NY.

Hutt, S., Mills, C., White, S., Donnelly, P.J., D’Mello, S.K. (2016). The eyes have it: Gaze-based detection of mind wandering during learning with an intelligent tutoring system. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2015). International Educational Data Mining Society.

Mills, C.*, Bixler, R.*, Wang, X., D’Mello, S.K. (2016). Automatic gaze-based detection of mind wandering during film viewing. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2015). International Educational Data Mining Society. *equal contributing authors

Allen, L.K., Mills, C., Crossely S., Jacovina, M., D’Mello, S.K. McNamara, D.S. (2016). Investigating boredom and engagement during writing using multiple sources of information: The essay, the writer, and keystrokes. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge. (LAK 2016) (pp. 114-123). ACM: NewYork, NY.

Mills, C., D’Mello, S.K. (2015). Toward a Real-time (Day) Dreamcatcher: Detecting Mind Wandering Episodes During Online Reading. In C. Romero, M. Pechenizkiy, J. Boticario, & O. Santos (Eds.), Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2015) (pp. 69- 76). International Educational Data Mining Society.

Mills, C., D’Mello, S. K., Bosch, N., & Olney, A. (2015). Mind Wandering during Learning with an Intelligent Tutoring System. In C. Conati, N. Heffernan, A. Mitrovic, & M. Felisa Verdejo (Eds.), Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on ArtificialIntelligence in Education (AIED 2015) (pp. 267- 276). Springer-Verlag: Berlin Heidelberg.

Mills, C., Bosch, N., Graesser, A., & D’Mello, S. K. (2014). To Quit or Not to Quit: Predicting Future Behavioral Disengagement from Reading Patterns. In S. Trausan-Matu et al. (Eds.) Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS 2014) (pp. 19-28). Springer International Publishing: Switzerland.

Mills, C., D’Mello, S.K. (2013). Sorry, I Must Have Zoned Out: Tracking Mind Wandering Episodes in an Interactive Learning Environment. In H.C. Lane and K. Yacef (Eds.) Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (pp. 896-899). Berlin Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

Mills, C., D’Mello, S.K., Lehman, B., Bosch, N., Strain, A.C., Graesser, A.C. (2013) What Makes Learning Fun? Exploring the Influence of Choice and Difficulty on Mind Wandering and Engagement during Learning. In H.C. Lane and K. Yacef (Eds.) Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (pp. 71-80). Berlin Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

Bosch. N., D’Mello, S.K., Mills, C. (2013). What Emotions do Novices Experience During their First Computer Programming Learning Session? In H.C. Lane and K. Yacef (Eds.) Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (pp. 11-20). Berlin Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

Mills, C. & D’Mello, S. K. (2013). Emotions During Writing about Socially-Charged Issues: Effects of the (Mis)Alignment of Personal Positions with Instructed Positions. Proceedings of 26th Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society Conference (pp. 509-514). Menlo Park, CA: AAAI Press (Best Overall Paper and Best Student Paper Award winner)

Mills, C. & D’Mello, S. K. (2012). Emotions During Writing on Topics that Align or Misalign with Personal Beliefs. In S. Cerri & W. Clancey (Eds.) Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (pp. 638-639). Berlin Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

Lehman, B., Mills, C., D’Mello, S. K., & Graesser, A. C. (2012). Automatic Evaluation of Learner Self-Explanations and Erroneous Responses for Dialogue-Based ITSs. In S. Cerri & W. Clancey (Eds.) Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (pp. 541-550). Berlin Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

Dowell, N., D’Mello, S. K., Mills, C. & Graesser, A. C., (2011). Does Topic Matter? Topical Influences on Linguistic and Rubric-Based Evaluation of Writing. In G. Biswas, S. Bull, J. Kay, & A. Mitrovic (Eds.), Proceedings of 15th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (pp.450-452). Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

Other Publications

Faber, M. & Mills, C. (in press). The critical role of the hippocampus in mind wandering. Journal of Neuroscience.

Christoff, K., Mills, C., Andrews-Hanna, J.R., Irving, Z.C., Thompson, E., Fox, K.C.R., Kam, J. (in press). Mind wandering as a scientific construct: Cutting through the definitional haze. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

Mills, C. (2017). An Evidence-Centered Design Approach to Mind Wandering. Invited white paper. Analytics for Learning (A4L).

Lab Conference Presentations

Ucci, O., Martin, H., Gagne, J., Smith, S., & Mills, C. (2019, November). The significance of personal connection generation in reading comprehension and mind wandering processes. Poster presented at the New England Psychological Association’s annual meeting. Hooksett, NH.

Smith, S., Gagne, J., Martin, H., Tilton, L., Allen, L., & Mills, C. (2019, November). I Feel for You: How Subjective Feelings and Textual Emotion Influence Reading Comprehension. Poster presented at the Society for Computers in Psychology’s Annual Meeting. Montréal, Québec, Canada.

Gagne, J., Alpert, R., Porter, A., Smith, S., & Mills, C. (2019, November). Using natural language processing tools to predict the dynamics of thought. Talk given at the Society for Computers in Psychology’s Annual Meeting. Montréal, Québec, Canada.

Smith, S. & Mills, C. (2019, November). The influence of mood and generating personal connections on mind-wandering during reading. Poster presented at the Psychonomic Society’s Annual Meeting. Montréal, Québec, Canada.

Smith, S. & Mills, C. (2019, July). Positive connections: Dissociable effects of mood on mind-wandering during reading. Talk given at the Society of Text & Discourse’s Annual Meeting. New York, NY.

Smith, S. (2019, May). Mood during reading impacts online thought processes. Talk given at the UNH Psychology Departmental Colloquium. Durham, NH.

Tilton, L., Eldridge, S., Abeels, M., Edwards, B., Horan, T., Ucci, O., Widrig, B., Smith, S., & Mills, C. (2019, April). Mood during reading influences rate of personal connections. Abstract submitted to the UNH Undergraduate Research Conference. Durham, NH.